Tuesday, December 03, 2013

Michigan Planned Parenthood President Lori Lamerand struggles to argue for standard abortion insurance


In a flailing attempt to kept abortion as a standard part of tax-subsidized insurance plans in Michigan, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan President Lori Lamerand has a Huffington Post editorial which even received a tweet in support from PP's grand leader Cecile Richards.

Lamerand writes,
Under the proposed law, if a woman wants insurance to cover abortion, she'll have to anticipate the need well in advance and purchase a separate rider to cover the procedure.
And this is bad why?  If a woman wants abortion coverage then she can pay for it.     
Michigan politicians have invoked this rarely-used legislative maneuver only five times in its history -- and three of those times it has been used to attack women's access to health care.
Actually, politicians don’t invoke this legislation.  It’s called “citizen-initiated legislation” because Michigan citizens have to initiate the legislation by collecting hundreds of thousands of valid signatures from registered voters.   The reason it is rarely used is because it is difficult to collected more than 300,000 signatures in less than 6 months.  That's the same reason Planned Parenthood isn't mounting their own effort to collect signatures to get the legislation on the ballot.  They don't have the grassroots resources and they don't want to spend the money to pay signature gatherers.
Insurance coverage of abortion is not a partisan issue -- it is a health issue. 
Nice assertion.  Any argument or evidence?
Last December, the Michigan Section of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists opposed an abortion insurance ban and "any legislation that seeks to restrict access to the legitimate medical services necessary to preserve and protect the reproductive health and well being of the women of Michigan."
Guess not, unless saying a pro-choice group is opposed to prolife laws is evidence for something being solely a health issue.    
Why would the legislature interfere with how private parties contract to cover a safe, legal and constitutionally protected medical procedure?
That is an interesting argument coming from someone who favors Obamacare and the HHS Mandate which interfere in how private parties contract over health insurance much more than Michigan’s Abortion Insurance Opt-Out legislation.  The reason they'll pass the legislation in because Obamacare creates tax-subsidized insurance policies which cover abortion if states don't opt-out. 
The medical community objects to the abortion insurance ban.
Really?  The entire medical community does?
Republican Party leaders have vetoed it in the past and polls show that only 36 percent of Michigan voters support the provision.
So two Republican governors vetoed it (compared to the dozens who voted for it) and one poorly-worded poll with showed 36% support on an issue that large swaths of the public don't understand and that means what exactly?

Legislators should take this opportunity to stop injecting themselves into private health decisions and let Michigan voters decide what kind of insurance coverage is best for them and their families.

Again, this is coming from someone whose organization supports Obamacare and its various rules which require certain coverages.  If Lamerand actually gave a hoot about letting Michiganders decide their insurance coverage, she would be opposed to Obamacare.   

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